Implications of incorporating air-quality co-benefits into climate change policymaking

By Gregory F. Nemet, T. Holloway, P. Meier. 2010

388 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present an analysis of the barriers and opportunities for incorporating air quality co-benefits into climate policy assessments. It is well known that many strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions also decrease emissions of health-damaging air pollutants and precursor species, including particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide. In a survey of previous studies we found a range of estimates for the air quality co-benefits of climate change mitigation of $2- 196/tCO2 with a mean of $49/tCO2, and the highest co-benefits found in developing countries. These values, although of a similar order of magnitude to abatement cost estimates, are only rarely included in integrated assessments of climate policy. Full inclusion of these co-benefits would have pervasive implications for climate policy in areas including: optimal policy stringency, overall costs, distributional effects, robustness to discount rates, incentives for international cooperation, and the value of adaptation, forests, and climate engineering relative to mitigation. Under-valuation results in part from uncertainty in climatic damages, valuation inconsistency, and institutional barriers. Because policy debates are framed in terms of cost minimization, policy makers are unlikely to fully value air quality co-benefits unless they can be compared on an equivalent basis with the benefits of avoided climatic damages. While air quality co-benefits have been prominently portrayed as a hedge against uncertainty in the benefits of climate change abatement, this assessment finds that full inclusion of co-benefits depends on—rather than substitutes for—better valuation of climate damages.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, General Health Professions, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6fc02bfc2b956b0db9f559129bcf336be95d27f2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

In General Health Professions

D. Shindell

In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

Citations in the corpus

Impacts of carbon trading scheme on air pollutant emissions in Guangdong Province of China (2015, background): “Some researchers discussed the concept of co-benefits in the air pollution control and counter climate change (Kanad et al., 2013; Nemet et al., 2010; Jack and Kinney, 2010).”
The social cost of atmospheric release (2015, background): “…have provided compelling demonstrations of the importance of linkages between climate change and air quality valuation (e.g. (Caplan and Silva 2005; Nemet et al. 2010; Tollefsen et al. 2009)) and of the incorporation of economics into emission metrics (e.g. (Johansson 2012; Tanaka et al. 2013)),…”
Climate policies can help resolve energy security and air pollution challenges (2013, background): “We have only attempted to capture multiple benefits in terms of avoided or reduced costs for climate change mitigation, energy security, and pollution control; however, we make no attempt to economically value many of the other benefits, including things like reduced health expenditures (Nemet et al”
The Impact of a Carbon Tax on Inequality (2019, background): “We also set aside the benefit of reducing harmful co-pollutants, such as particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, NOx, and air toxins that released during the burning of fossil fuels, although the mean value of mitigating these co-pollutants may exceed $50 per ton of CO2 (Nemet et al. 2010).”
Climate policy co-benefits: a review (2020, background): “Nemet, Holloway, and Meier (2010) find economic values of air quality cobenefits in 37 studies ranging from USD 2–196/tCO2.”
Synergy between pollution and carbon emissions control: Comparing China and the United States (2014, background): “From the review of 37 peer-reviewed studies, for example, Nemet et al. (2010) draw the mean and median co-benefits of $44/tCO2 and $31/tCO2, respectively, for the developed world and those of $81/tCO2 and $43/tCO2 for developing countries.”
Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages (2018, neutral): “…(2014); Figueroa and Ribeiro (2013); Galvão et al. (2016); Haby et al. (2016); Haines et al. (2007); IEA (2016); Kaygusuz (2011); Lelieveld (2017); Nemet et al. (2010); Rafaj et al. (2013); Rao et al (2013); Rao et al (2016); Riahi et al. (2012); Rose et al. (2014); Schwerhoff and Sy (2017);…”
How Much Carbon Pricing is in Countries' Own Interests? The Critical Role of Co-Benefits (2014, background): “…by about 100 percent (this is the ‘double dividend’ 2 A further issue, not examined here, is that international emissions offset programs become less attractive from a national perspective to the extent they reduce domestic CO2 abatement and hence domestic co-benefits (e.g., Nemet et al. 2010).”